As part of a multimillion-dollar, five-year grant to continue aging-related research at Yale, the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center is pleased to announce new awards to seven University researchers. The center also invites applications for 2014 awards; the application deadline is October 21.

“The mission of the Yale Older Americans Independence Center (OAIC) is to provide intellectual leadership and innovation for aging research that is directed at enhancing the independence of older persons. Building on the foundation laid over the last 21 years, the unifying theme of the Yale OAIC is the investigation of multifactorial geriatric health conditions,” says Dr. Thomas M. Gill, Humana Professor of Medicine (Geriatrics), who is Director of the Yale Pepper Center.

The Yale OAIC hypothesis is that geriatric health conditions are determined by the co-occurrence of multiple predisposing and precipitating factors. These conditions and factors, in turn, affect a range of health outcomes. The predisposing factors may be at the genetic, molecular, physiologic, impairment, disease, or socio-demographic level, while the precipitating factors may be behavioral, environmental, social, medical, or psychological.

Other goals of the Center have been to advance the careers of junior faculty members in aging-related research and to encourage the interdisciplinary focus on multifactorial geriatric conditions through the work of senior scientists,” says Dr. Terri R. Fried, Professor of Medicine (Geriatrics), who is Co-Director of the Yale Pepper Center. Career development awards provide salary and research support for junior faculty in the first five years of their faculty appointment.

The Yale OAIC houses five cores: Leadership and Administrative led by Gill; Research Career Development led by Fried; Pilot/Exploratory Studies led by Dr Albert C. Shaw MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases); Operations Core led by Dr. Vincent J. Quagliarello, Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases), and Biostatistics Core led by Heather G. Allore, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Geriatrics).

Letters of intent are currently being solicited from qualified Yale faculty researchers for 2014 Yale Pepper Center career development, pilot/exploratory, and methodological development awards; the deadline is October 21, 2013. Both clinical and basic research projects are encouraged. See http://pepper.med.yale.edu for details.